Food Qualms

Pears - Shit, it is annoying how they get mushy so fast.  Pears wait for no man.

Oatmeal - I love it, but I wish it wouldn't boil over in the microwave.  This is oatmeals only major design flaw from my perspective.  If anyone can give me an inventive solution for preventing the boiling over of oatmeal, I will give him or her many hugs and kisses.

This is going to be a really self-indulgent post..

... you've been warned.

I've been working out and eating really healthy ever since I got back to Texas.  I had gained a little weight while living with Ian, not a ton, but since I moved back to Texas like one and a half months ago, I have officially lost an inch off of my waist!  (An inch and a half when I measure in the morning)  And THIS folks, is my "situation":

I also lost an inch off of my butt/hips, but I don't actually think it looks any smaller, instead it just looks rounder. :P  Whatever, I'm not complaining.  I know it's really strong and that makes me feel good.

For diet, I mostly focused on eating lots and lots of vegetables and getting enough fiber, and controlling my portion sizes.  It is a constant challenge to try and eat exactly enough.  You have to be conscious of how your body feels and how much you're putting into your mouth.  I think most people are bad at this.  I think most people are bad at conscious consuming in other areas as well, but that is for a different post.  

I actually ate more carbs over the last month or two than I would normally, because I was running.  If you don't refuel your glycogen stores after you run, then your run the next day will SUCK.  You can't run very fast or for as long, and it's also not enjoyable.  I have experienced this phenomenon first hand.  I also ate less meat and drank less than when I was with Ian.  Alcohol is a huge calorie budget sinkhole.  Most of all though, I'm trying to eat a more "plant-based diet".

And for working out, I've picked up running, which I used to hate, but for some reason I now enjoy. (?)  I REALLY love running.  I think I probably look ridiculous towards the end, running around with a HUGE smile on my face, even though I look totally beat.  But I'm just so happy!  It feels so good, like all my blood has turned to wine. :D  I cover about 3ish miles every other day but that number is increasing all the time.  I am getting stronger.  I know this because I write what I do down every day in a running log.  It is unfathomable to me when I realize I can run for longer than I previously could, or that the things I used to think were so difficult, have now gotten so much easier with practice.  There's this quote by Mister Rogers about him being disciplined in his swimming.  He says,
"I like to swim, but there are some days I just don't feel much like doing it - but I do it anyway!  I know it's good for me and I promised myself I'd do it everyday, and I like to keep my promises.  That's one of my disciplines.  And it's a good feeling after you've tried and done something well.  Inside you think, 'I've kept at this and I've really learned it - not by magic, but by my own work."
I love that quote!  And that's how I feel about my running, I am getting better at it, not by magic, but by my own work.  :D

On my non-running days, I like to do these workouts from www.bodyrock.tv  This girl Zuzana is incredible.  She is such an inspiration to me, and her workouts will make you cry!  :D  She's so passionate about what she does.  I love her because in her workout videos, you can see she is really PUSHING herself.  I hate watching exercise videos where the trainer acts like everything you're doing is so easy.  If working out and losing weight were that easy, everyone would be thin.  It makes me feel good watching Zuzana sweat because it feels like we're in it together!  And plus, watching her challenge herself and push her body, you realize, "That's how she created the body that she has!  She pushed herself, and that is what I must do."  Here's her workout from today to give you an example:  

The whole workout is explained on her site if you're interested.

"maiden's banter and smiles and deceits and sweet delight and lovemaking and gentleness." -Hesiod

Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy, yet sensual, I think about trading in my usual shower for a tongue bath.  It works for cats.  They're usually pretty clean.  They smell a little, but I think it's because they're carnivores.

I think it's possible that all of these minor distinctions between polyamory, bigamy, fuck-buddies,  open relationships, polyfidelity, romantic friendships, etc. are just navel gazing jibber-jabber.  It seems like every major relationship I've had has spent a fair amount of time meandering around in this nonspecific grey area of relationship ambiguity, and I don't think it makes a difference what you call it.

"Can I see your weiner on webcam?"
"ehhh, maybe later."
" :( "
....
"what's it doing right now?"
"it's in my pants."
"that's cool ... ..."

first dates.  Sometimes I think I would be better served entertainment-wise if I was staring at my vagina with a handheld mirror.  If you have a small furry animal and offer to bring it on the date with us, I am approximately 639% more likely to go on a date with you even if I don't like you, and that is god's honest truth.

I love birding!  How come I never realized what a great hobby this was when I took biology?  I love watching them fly and seeing them hop around.  That's one thing that bothers me about public schools today, you spend all this time learning facts you don't find interesting and filling out worksheets, but inspiring lifelong passions in students about any of the subjects that are taught is not emphasized.
I was reading this fascinating book in Half-Price Books the other day called Why Don't Students Like School.  It is a puzzling question to me because not only does figuring something out stimulate your brain in a way that feels good, I also know many people (and this is true of myself as well) who love clicking from one Wikipedia article to the next and filling their brains with information, but found school boring and irrelevant.  So this was a cognitive scientist's perspective on that question.  This guy had some seriously good, practical, evidence-based, advice for teachers that I found worthwhile.  Plus it seemed really non-fadish and like he wasn't pushing an agenda.  Some of these education books it's like "Geeze! Shut up about discovery learning already!"

 Alright so I finally made good on my intentions and made a tumblr with delicious outdoorsy rugged men in it:
http://ruggedgrizzlies.tumblr.com/ and here is the one showing off my cooking skillz. http://dinnersihavemade.tumblr.com/

The other day I helped my mom clean out the garage, and we found a tin of my Granny King's hair.  She used to have long auburn hair that went all the way to the floor that she used to wear up in a bun all the time (Except when she'd put her hair over mine to see what I'd look like with auburn hair ::P).  When she went into a nursing home they cut it off.  Even though it's weird, I still think it's neat to have it.

Not having a job and not being in school provides me with ample time to think about my "problems" and to become simultaneously depressed AND self-absorbed.  I feel bad for everyone who has to be around me.

Come on bartender, be a little more tender. I ate all your peanuts, return me to sender.

Tomorrow Ian's going out on his second date with some new girl off OkCupid.

We've been broken up for 10 days.

I could have dates too by now!  I could be on a date tonight if I felt like it!  I get like 20 messages a day (well, if it's going well) on OkCupid.  In fact, now, I feel compelled to go on a date.
I don't want to though.  Ugghhhh I just dooooooonnnnnn't feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel like it.  How can I go out on dates when I feel so depressed and messed up inside?  How does HE do it?  :'-(
Second date, that's like the first kiss date ...  Ugh!  The thought of that makes me want to barf.  Some other girl gets to kiss him when I don't get to.  It tears me up inside.  Ian says stupid things like, "You're making a bigger deal out of this than it is."  It is a big deal to meeeee!

Oh well, he groped my breasts like a 14 year old anyway.

DIY Shelter

Have you ever read (not really reading so much as looking at pictures) the book Handmade Houses?  It is inspirational!  Makes me want to move out to the Pacific Northwest and live in a log cabin reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaalllll bad.

This article made me remember the book:

Carbuncles

I'm going to start a club, and you can join it if you want.  It's going to be called "The Pet Petting Club".  Basically, you just bring your pet to the meetings, and the members ... pet it.

Alright, so here's my other club idea: I can't decide on the name, I'm thinking something like "Daft Craft" or "Creative Daze" or "Smoke Trees with Crafties" and it basically involves me and my friends herbally enhancing our moods, and then gluing felt, glitter, and googly eyes onto pinecones and rocks.

I was thinking about this the other day, why aren't there any oriental rugs with fractal patterns?  Does that exist, because it should.

Life IS suffering.  I used to think that concept was ridiculous.  I used to think life was full of blessings, and full of exuberance and joy.  Maybe that is still the case.  Lately though, I always seem to be in the midst of loss, and when I'm not grieving over some loss of something that was important to me, I'm fearful of what a potential loss would feel like.  I think it has to do with forming deep attachments to people and places.  Like the last couple days I was in New Jersey and I knew I would be leaving Ian soon, even when I wasn't at that moment leaving him, I was anticipating the loss of him, and it hurt just as much.  And I'm always attached to something, many things at the same time!  And so life is always endless, awful, discouraging suffering.  I'm always in the midst of loss or fearful of loss and how terrible the devastation can be.

Sometimes if you are REALLY REALLY sad, it hurts physically too.  Like you have the flu or something.  I did not learn this until recently.

.... This blows.

I like turtles.

Face-to-Face

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TTTTTHHHHHHHHings

I am changing on the inside very fast and very frequently in the last few years and lately, and I document what I think a lot.  Then later when I read things I've written I find it so childish immature and embarrassing.  Especially when it's on the internet.


Sometimes I am not convinced my life is relevant.  Actually, make that most of the time.  Relevant, like, to the forward motion of the universe.  Like if I were to die, (I am not suicidal BTW just musing) it wouldn't really matter.  My parents, my sister, and Ian would cry, but it wouldn't MATTER because my existence has basically no consequence on this earth.  I like living of course, having no particularly appealing alternative, but my life does not feel necessary in the grand scheme of things.  I guess I should start drowning these thoughts by having babies or helping people aggressively ...   Can I ever make my life relevant?

I am scratching my butt, as you read this.  :D

Decorating

I've been trying to decorate Ian's new condo which has excellent potential.  He really likes expensive high style modern furniture a la www.dwr.com.  E.g.

I agree that this stuff is beautiful, but it's like 'dude, where's my ceramic animal collection supposed to go?'

Cockblock

Long distance relationships are a serious cockblock.  I mean there's like no cock involved basically, on my end anyway.  I guess I'll have to get used to that ... although my midbrain is pretty upset about it.

How absurd!

I just found out that this type of shoe is called the "lobster claw" haha, and I can't stop laughing about it.  Models with lobster feet!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

In other news, I have a new favorite homepage: The Daily Bunny!  Eeep!!!!
Everyday a new bunny!  Like this one:

I want one! I want one! I want one! 

And look at the hole this fine bunny rabbit dug:

Boobs

The root of the compassion I feel towards others is this:  that old Bill Hicks quote, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.  It is so easy to love people and to push through misunderstandings and to help others when you truly believe the other person is your spirit but dealt a different set of cards in life.



Subject change!   Ok Ok, so look closely at this picture and the girls in the middle, hee-hee!  Their boobs are like REALLY touching.  Hee-hee-hee-hee!  :D :D :D 

I just think about the plight of Kiera Knightly and whoever that blonde girl is, trying to take this picture with a straight face, and how difficult that must have been.  I know I'm immature (and a partial lesbian), but whenever a picture's being taken of me and another girl and our boobs are touching, I think it's the most awkward, hilarious, and uncomfortable thing, and I can't stop thinking about it while it's happening.  Anyway, food for thought.

Boo

Ian's in New Jersey, and I'm staying in Texas to finish school.  He might as well be on the surface of the moon.  :(

Fo Real!

SHIT IS REAL!



It's real.

Real Church

     I watched "Jesus Camp" for the second time the other day, and in it there's this little girl who talks about how some people go to "dead churches", as in churches that God doesn't visit because the people's hearts aren't in the right place.  (It's in this section, 4:05.)
     But I think... I think they're ALL dead churches.  Opal Whitely at 5 years old wrote in her journal, "To me all God's out-of-doors is one grand cathedral."  I think she's right.  You have to find church.  Good places to look include under fir trees and near creek beds.  

     What made me think of dead churches and Opal Whitely's real churches was reading some Ralph Waldo Emmerson.  When he was young he began as a minister, but then he left it writing in his journal, "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers."  I think he is right too.

     I love Opal Whitely by the way.  Her writing is absolutely the most heart warming stuff.  Here's an excerpt I found online:

By and by, I came to a log. It was a nice little log. It was as long as three pigs as long as Peter Paul Rubens. [Peter Paul Rubens is the name of her pet pig] I climbed upon it. I so did to look more looks about. The wind did blow in a real quick way -- he made music all around. I danced on the log. It is so much a big amount of joy to dance on a log when the wind does play the harps in the forest. Then do I dance on tiptoe. I wave greetings to the plant-bush folks that do dance all about. Today a grand pine tree did wave its arms to me, and the bush branches patted my cheek in a friendly way. The wind again did blow back my curls -- they clasped the fingers of the bush-people most near. I did turn around to untangle them. It is most difficult to dance on tiptoe on a log when one's curls are in a tangle with the branches of a friendly bush that grew near unto the log, and does make bows to one while the wind doth blow. When I did turn to untangle my curls, I saw a silken cradle in a hazel branch. I have thinks that the wind did just tangle my curls so I would have seeing of that cradle. It was cream, with a hazel leaf halfway round it. I put it to my ear, and I did listen. It had a little voice. It was not a tone voice; it was a heart voice. While I did listen, I did feel its feels. It had lovely ones. And then I did hurry away in the way that does lead to the house of the girl that has no seeing. I went that way so she too might know its feels, and hear its heart voice. She does so like to feel things as she has seeing by feels.

     Oh and speaking of incredible journals, I just bought a book of excerpts from Edward Abbey's journal called Confessions of a Barbarian.  Good Gracious!  It was $7, which is far more than I like to spend at Half Price Books for a single book, but it's sooooooooooooo good!  It's like riveting and gut-wrenchingly personal, witty and eloquent in this uncouth way.  :D  I'm in love with him.  I mean if he wasn't so terrible with women (and 20 years dead) I would write love letters to his uncivilized ass.

Living With Ian is Still Completely Amazing

I went to the Austin Women's Clothing Swap last weekend.  So incredible.  With the live music and the sorting efforts I was a part of and the buzzing energy of all those women, I was overcome with my how much I love my gender and others of my gender.  We are so capable.  I wish I had given more to the cause now.

Man I want dreads so freaking bad.

"Steal Something From Work Day" is retarded

This makes me angry:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=266656408191&ref=mf

I hate anti-capitalist anarchists.  What makes me angry is how they handle their anger towards the large overhead and occasional corruption of corporations, which, noted, is often well placed.  If these anti-establishment anarchists don't like working for the man or feel like someone's flying a private jet at their expense, work for someone else!!!  Like a small business, or better yet start a worker's cooperative with no overhead, or better still, you could drop out of the system and just start urban homesteading.  This problem has many solutions, and you don't have to bring down capitalism or steal from good businesses to improve your situation.  Capitalism is well loved by many, not just capitalists, and for those who hate it, capitalism helps those people more than they realize.  Capitalism benefits the consumer more than any other system, which most Americans are.

Not just my face, but my whole heart is covered in smiles

Ahhhh Ian makes my life feel like a Mazzy Star song.  Like dreamy soft and loved up. 

Joseph Stack

Everyone's been giving me flack for feeling this way, but I read Joseph Stack's suicide manifesto and he didn't sound like a lunatic or a maniac.  He didn't sound like a terrorist nutjob.  He just sounded really angry at being fucked over by the IRS too many times.  I get pissed off at our aggressive coercive government at times too, doesn't everyone?  Our current tax code has become basically a financial rape instruction manual, and although I would never initiate violence against the government, my heart does go out to Joseph Stack, and I sympathize with him.
You know who I don't sympathize with?  The IRS.  I think they're a bunch of thugs, stealing from us, abusing us, and hassling us.  They want to squeeze every bit of money out of us that they possibly can in their own self-interest and they're able to do so because they have the power of the state behind them.  They have made us slaves to the enrichment of the government and if you work for the IRS (although you may not deserve to die), you're NOT innocent, you're a scum sucking asshole. 

Whether or not violence is an effective means to achieving a non-aggressive government has yet to be seen, but goddamn it, they need to reform the fucking tax code (among other things).

EDIT:  I've changed my opinion about the last part.  I now think that you can only create a non-coercive, non-nonviolent free society with non-coercive, non-violent means.

Come for the breasts, stay for the ... dance moves?

Will someone let me borrow their cat to roll around and take naked pictures with?

Man, if you ever move in with your boyfriend, be prepared for your family to be PISSED AS FUCK.  Nothing puts a damper on your happiness like having your dad call you all sorts of names and telling you he never wants to see your boyfriend ever again.  Ugh!  Shit is rough.  But I have made plenty of decisions before that I'm glad I made but know my parents would disapprove of if they knew about them.  I doubt this will be any different.  I know I made the right choice.  This decision and this man are right as rain for me, and I have a lot of peace in my heart about moving in with Ian.  The rest of the world can just shit a brick about it for all I care.

Mmmmmm  here are things that have been making my heart soar lately:
1) Waking up next to Ian every morning because he is always so warm and snuggly.
2) Eating free oatmeal that's 5 minutes past it's expiration date at Jamba Juice.
3) Ian in winter clothes, i.e. like yesterday when he wore his super soft navy cashmere and silk sweater with taupe khakis.  He's so yummy.
4) Watching Kevin Smith movies and Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Ian at night.
5) Finding my socks in with Ian's socks when I fold laundry.
6) The look on Ian's face when he comes home and sees what I made for dinner.
7) The flourless chocolate dome cake at PF Changs.

Fatty

Oh dear lord, did I just eat all the rest of that creamcheese frosting by myself?  Uggggggghhhhhhh  I need a better hobby.  I also need to workout.

Transitions

So I'm all moved in to Ian's apartment.  It feels pretty weird.  It's like all my random crap like bongos and a sewing machine and kites and libertarian propaganda among his uber modern minimalist decor that I never would have picked for myself.  But then I see J. Alfred Prufrock, my gold ceramic duck in the bedroom and the peanut butter we got together at the grocery store because I like chunky, and I guess I really live here now.

I cried like a little bitty fucking baby last night for at least an hour leaving the co-op with all my stuff and when we got home.  God I still feel like crying for another hour about it.  I loved that place.  I don't care if it was a shithole, it was my shithole and I loved everyone in it and everything about it.  When you live there, you don't realize how much your stuff smells like stale cigarette ashes and pot.  Such a beautiful experience to know so many true authentic people, people who care about me and looked out for me.  Of course I'll visit, but I'll miss out on stuff I know it.  Like when we had a huge snowball fight with newspaper in the dining room, and all the late night dance parties in the kitchen making french fries, or just all the times I came home for lunch and laughed until my sides hurt.  Submission parties, Molly cuddle fests, sitting around on the back porch shootin' the shit.  Ahhh, it's so heartbreaking not being there!

Looks like it's time to cry some more.

Ian Ian Ian Iann IaaaaaAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love love love love love him and I think I'll be with him for as long as he'll have me.